Search

Event Cal­en­dar

Mem­ber Login

Mer­cer is a town in Som­er­set County incor­po­rated on June 22, 1804 from Indus­try Plantation.

First set­tled in the early-1780’s, it was named for Rev­o­lu­tion­ary War Brigadier-​General Hugh Mercer.

With forty-​one res­i­dents in 1800, Mer­cer exploded to a pop­u­la­tion of 1,432 by 1840. Soon there­after, Maine’s first starch fac­tory was estab­lished soon to be fol­lowed by another, which joined the saw, grist, shin­gle, and joiner’s mills and a tannery.

The Con­gre­ga­tional Meet­ing­house, which still stands, was ded­i­cated on June 11, 1829. How­ever, the Methodist Vestry, built in 1860, was destroyed by fire in 1901. Recon­structed almost imme­di­ately, the new struc­ture was restored to look exactly like the original.

The town lies on U.S. Route 2 just west of Nor­ridge­wock with frontage on North Pond at its south­east corner.